Extra

A number of Berkeley-connected businesses are doing fundraisers for relief efforts after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Here’s information on two.

ARTS AND CRAFTS PRINT FUNDRAISER

Yoshiko Yamamoto, known to many locals for her beautiful handmade block print artwork, especially images showing the California landscape, has created a special print, a seascape of “Matsushima Bay” as a fundraiser.

Yoshiko is from Tokyo. She used to live in Berkeley, where the Arts & Crafts Press was founded. She, and the Press, are currently located in Washington State. Her stepdaughter and stepson are currently in Japan aiding relief efforts.

She writes on her website and in e-mail, “The bay, before the earthquake, well-known for its beauty, was one of the three great views of Japan, the ‘Nihon Sankei’ noted in 1643 by the scholar Hayashi Razan. One of the famous haiku attributed to Basho goes:

Matsushima, ah!

A-ah, Matsushima, ah,

Matsushima, ah

The simplicity of the haiku signified that Matsushima was so beautiful, Basho could say nothing more about it.”

“My hope is that you can pass on this message to as many of your friends and families as possible so we can all together offer help for those who are suffering. And let us all hope that the Tohoku region will again become safe, vibrant and beautiful, as it used to be, as I tried to convey in this small print.”

The print shows a turquoise blue ocean with scattered, pine clad, islands. The Arts and Crafts Press is selling the prints for $30 each in a limited edition of 500.

All the proceeds go to the organization Empact Northwest that is working to provide medical relief near Sendai.

Additionally, the Framer’s Workshop on Channing Way under the Sather Gate Garage, carries Yamamoto prints locally and is offering to donate 20% of the price of framing the “Matsushima Bay” print to Empact Northwest if you buy the print and frame it at their store. They are also ordering and will frame some of the prints, and sell them at their store with the print proceeds going to the relief fund.

The event is held in collaboration with the Red Cross. All donations, and proceeds from all sales that night will be put into a relief fund. Half of the fund will go to the Japan Red Cross, and the other to the JETAA USA Japan Earthquake Relief Fund “which will support children’s relief and the start of many rebuild projects.”